Lala Pipo

‘Lala Pipo’ is based on a collection of short stories (makes a change from the ususal Manga comics) by acclaimed Japanese author Okuda Hideo. The film’s title, in turn, originated from one character’s mispronunciation of an American tourist’s observation that Tokyo has a ‘lotta people’.

Here, the people in question are a wacky assortment of losers, pimps, hookers, voyeurs and the lost, lonely and desperate who populate planet porno. Interweaving the stories of individual characters like Hiroshi, an overweight loner desperate for a girlfriend who has conversations with his penis (played by a furry green Muppet), or Tomoko, a naive and pretty shop assistant who glides into the porn industry after having fallen for ‘talent scout’ Kenji, the film portrays each and everyone’s own vision of hope, humanity and redemption. Each character is wackier than the other, like Koichi, whose fantasy alter-ego is a porno Power Ranger called Captain Bonita, or Sayuri, an overweight young woman whose ambition is to be an anime voiceover artist but who already is an artist of a different kind.

The screenplay is by Tetsuya Nakashima, the award-winning writer/director of cult films ‘Memories Of Matsuko’ and ‘Kamikaze Girls’. It should therefore come as little surprise that the debut feature by director Masayuki Miyano is shot in the same candy-coloured and highly surreal style as Nakashima’s previous two films. ‘Lala Pipo’ is quirky, tragicomic, utterly twisted and offbeat all at once. At times, however, it tends to drift into vulgarity and the subplots confuse rather than emphasize what the film is really about.

Special features include interviews, ‘Making of’ featurette, trailers and optional English subtitles (which is just as well, seeing how the main language is Japanese).